China lays out vision for military

The Chinese military says while the security situation in Asia and the Pacific is generally stable, it is becoming “more intricate and volatile", with no clear solutions for tension points such as the divided Korean Peninsula and with the US increasing its involvement in regional security issues.

The military’s vision was laid out on Thursday in a national defence white paper, a document published every two years since 1998. The paper tries to walk a line between trumpeting the modernisation efforts of the military and assuaging fears of foreign governments and analysts that the fast-growing People’s Liberation Army will be used for expansionist purposes or regional dominance.

The paper stresses that China’s military build-up is purely defensive in nature, a line that Chinese leaders have long espoused. In the past year, perceptions by foreign countries of China’s military growth and of a more assertive Chinese foreign policy have resulted in diplomatic discord and discomfort, particularly with the US.

“China attaches importance to its military relationship with the United States and has made ongoing efforts towards building a sound military relationship," senior colonel Geng Yansheng said at a news conference. “The Chinese military is now taking steps to advance exchanges with the US military this year."

But “there’s no denying that in developing military relations, we still face difficulties and challenges," he added.

The white paper observes that in the Asia-Pacific region, “relevant major powers are increasing their strategic investment".

“The United States is reinforcing its regional military alliances, and increasing its involvement in regional security affairs," it adds.

Geng said Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde would visit the US in May.

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US Defence Secretary
Robert Gates
flew to Beijing in January to smooth over military-to-military relations that had been frozen after the Obama administration announced arms sales to Taiwan in January 2010. In June, Gates got into a prickly dispute with General Ma Xiaotian at a security summit meeting in Singapore, an episode that revealed the deep fissures in the military relationship.

In December, Robert F. Willard, the commander of the US Pacific Command, told a Japanese newspaper that China had a working design for an anti-ship ballistic missile that could strike at aircraft carriers and could soon be ready for deployment. The missile, known as a “carrier killer", has become a symbol in Western military circles of the Chinese army’s technological advances.

The weapon “is not science fiction", Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the US Naval War College, said earlier this year. “It is not a ‘smoke and mirrors’ bluff," he wrote.

“It is not an aspirational capability that the US can ignore until some point in the future."

Of equal or greater import is China’s plan to soon deploy an aircraft carrier known to be under construction. But the white paper, while ostensibly aimed at making China’s military development more transparent, does not discuss the carrier project. Geng dodged a question about it at the news conference.

The paper notes that China still faces challenges from “separatists" striving for the independence of the restive western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang and the self-governing island of Taiwan.

“Pressure builds up in preserving China’s territorial integrity and maritime rights and interests," it says. “Non-traditional security concerns, such as existing terrorism threats, energy, resources, finance, information and natural disasters, are on the rise. Suspicion about China, interference and countering moves against China from the outside are on the increase."

The Chinese government has announced that the military budget for 2011 is about $US92 billion, up 12.7 per cent from 2010. The previous announced annual increase was 7.5 per cent, the first time in years the reported growth had dipped below double digits.

“China pursues a national defence policy which is defensive in nature," the white paper says. It will “never seek hegemony, nor will it adopt the approach of military expansion now or in the future, no matter how its economy develops."